BSB is right. Purple/Rainbow have almost zero mainstream profile here in the UK. Sure, you'll hear them on the specialist rock radio stations (but even there, Planet Rock (for example) plays Led Zep three times a night, Purple once a week). But those are niche stations with small audiences. Classic rock simply doesn't get play on the big daytime stations (millions of listeners instead of a few thousand) at all.

Comparing Purple with ABBA in recognition and sales, in the UK, is a joke. Everybody from kids to grannies knows ABBA, every wedding DJ will play them, I once saw an ABBA *tribute* band with a bigger audience than some DP shows I've been to. Then there was the stage show which ran for like a billion performances and spawned a movie packed with Hollywood megastars. You add it all up, and the ABBA songwriters must be millionaires many times over. They could probably give every penny they currently have to charity and be millionaires again by this time next year because THAT'S HOW MANY TIMES ABBA SONGS ARE PLAYED.

Honestly, not making any judgement of musical worth at all, just on sales, current recognition levels, and overall market penetration, Purple and ABBA can't even be put on the same graph.

Having said that, Jon Lord once said (not too long ago) that he still got a five-figure annual income from Smoke on the Water. So it's hard to imagine Purple members being flat broke

Out of curiousity I searched the biggest rock radio channel in Sweden, Radio Bandit, two days back.

It has been claimed that Graham Bonnet received $12,000in total from his Rainbow experience, Album, Touring etc etc. Frankly that doesn't surprise me at all.

Roger Glover said at one point the Rainbow operation was costs $50,000 a week to keep it running, no doubt because all the roadies, had roadies who had roadies etc etc.

It's amazing how many of these elder rock stars who should be worth Millions simply are not. I'm not 100% on this but I read that Uli Jon Roth was about to file for bankruptcy last year following an issue with taxes and a failed studio venture. So it's not allfast cars and loose women.

BN was going out for £6-15K a night a while back, but the costs will be fairly horrendous with so many players, crew and everything else. Typically they only do 6 dates on an outing, so do the maths.

I'm sure Blackmore is very comfortable with no need to worry about money, but I'm less sure he's super rich at this stage. Hence the Rainbow revival plan.

12000 usd..? It was a lot more 37 years ago, but still sounds ridiculously low?
Even a very low income job pays better than that these days.

Well he didn't write any of it so he loses out on publishing royalties so all he would get are performance royalties (assuming he didn't take some sort of lump sum salary type of deal) which doesn't amount to much. So $12k is not outside of the realm of possibilities

Also, ABBA's and LZ's fan base is distributed in all major markets, which is not really the case with DP, because DP is "only" big in Japan and parts of Europe, whereas in the US they have a smaller footprint and in other markets it's the same. If you think that until 30 years ago or so, the US accounted for about 40% of album sales worldwide, you can easily see how their status in Sweden, flattering as it may be, is not going to take them to the same level;-)

You say Purple is only big "in Japan and parts of Europe"..
I don't know any other band that have toured literally the whole world on such a high level as Purple.
They have been all over Russia, Asia, South America, Oceania and even Africa including the middle east.
And of course still tour Europe and North America succesfully.
People all over the world seems to know the songs, it will slowly change of course.
1 in 3 youths don't know who Elvis is any longer.

For what it's worth probably less than 1 in 1 youths have the faintest idea who Ritchie Blackmore and Rainbow are. In the UK Rainbow is a kids cult TV show and or something to do with a Gay lifestyle.

Not true, I have seen early teens recently walking about with "RB`s Rainbow " patches on their jackets, very surreal because that was me ( and others on here) quite a few moons ago! The point is quality always attracts interest, even decades later, and a few seconds on a smartphone searching say NWOBHM would yield a treasure trove of music and bands for anyone with even a passing interest. IMO less youngsters would know about the TV show than RB`s band.

If you honestly believe that EEF, then I think you must still think it's the early 80's and your still living in that time.

Rainbow and Blackmore mean virtually nothing to most of todays UK youths in terms of ever being a band. Most of them were brought up with RAINBOW meaning something entirely different, .... TV Show for kids .... a LBGT symbol, something in the sky when it's rained. They don't remember much before U2 or Oasis etc etc etc and for them the crap these bands produced is what they consider to be Rock. Mostly it's a case of Blackmore who? They know Smoke On the Water, but they don't associate that with Blackmore, they associate that with playstation games like "Rock Star" or whatever the feck it's called, where people pretend to play along to tunes like SOTW and Paradise City etc etc.

Re: Re:The question is if the early teens were familiar with the band or just wore a "cool" or "obscure" patch from a band they know nothing about (Just like kids have worn Led Zeppelin or Rolling Stones t-shirts for years.)

I like that the bands get some exposure though. But it would be even nicer to know that they were actually familiar with the music.
Of course there are always people who genuinely are into music and will discover this music decades from now as well. But the majority isn't interested in music at all. For them, it's all about what's popular this week and what their friends are listening to (which depends on where they live etc)

The question is if the early teens were familiar with the band or just wore a "cool" or "obscure" patch from a band they know nothing about (Just like kids have worn Led Zeppelin or Rolling Stones t-shirts for years.)

I like that the bands get some exposure though. But it would be even nicer to know that they were actually familiar with the music.
Of course there are always people who genuinely are into music and will discover this music decades from now as well. But the majority isn't interested in music at all. For them, it's all about what's popular this week and what their friends are listening to (which depends on where they live etc)

So called social-media has a lot to answer for and might well more appropriately be called anti-social-media. These days people spend more time communicating by their smart phone than they do in person. Some even sit in the same room and message each other via phones!

George Orwell predicted all this sort of stuff for his 1984 book, he maybe was a bit out on the timescales, but the future he saw where the "proles" were fed manufactured music to keep them happy, had screens to receive the messages of Big Brother and were traceable everywhere, appear to be upon us now...... Big Time!

If you use a mobile, you can't escape it ever these days "why didn't you answer your phone when I called ?"............ "maybe coz I was fu*king your wife at the time!" It's a total snoopers charter these days as is facebook, instagram, snapchat etc etc There no escape.

On the commercial rewards of Purple -and Blackmore- one has to remember the financial benefits go in cycles.
HEC enterprises -the management of DP in their heyday- controlled the money rolling in, and accountant EH Reid made arrangements to minimise tax and outgoings. The 'proverbial hit the fan' circa 1977 when Reid suddenly died, leaving little documentation where much of the money was invested- all ex members along with Colletta/Edwards were significantly affected.

Blackmore had indeedy self-financed Rainbow until this time and its understandable this made him decide to go the AOR/commercial route; I suspect he had little choice. Sell more records or dump Rainbow as a project.
Add to the pot that Gillan was bankrupted by his hotel and motorcycle investments, Paice and Lord lost a fortune with PAL, and its not surprising the band reformed- what is surprising it took them until 1984!!

Back catalogue sales indeed bring money in but its evident from the legal proceedings the Purple members have taken in the past few years that due payments have not been received. I suspect the Rainbow official "bootleg" releases recently have benefited Bruce Payne as well as Ritchie, for minimum outlay. Payne I believe owns around 50% of the Rainbow publishing (as Thames Talent.

I dont believe Ritchie does anything he doesnt want to do, irrespective of money, creativity, art or spousal pressure!

Re: ritchie statement in new bn cdWatching docu about swedish pop star Harpo. He had a massive hit in Europe in the mid seventies, "Moviestar" and a few other hits.
He said Moviestar still pays for his horse farm and everything else. "I live a comfortable life"..

I dare say Purple and it's various members is on a totally different level than Harpo these days.

Watching docu about swedish pop star Harpo. He had a massive hit in Europe in the mid seventies, "Moviestar" and a few other hits.
He said Moviestar still pays for his horse farm and everything else. "I live a comfortable life"..

I dare say Purple and it's various members is on a totally different level than Harpo these days.

Of course they are, there is absolutely no way any of these guys are struggling for money.